Not One Line
by TwilightMoon317
Summary: "Not those times, not one line. Don't you dare." It hurts worse the second time, the last time he hears those words.


EARTH:

"Hello." River opened the door and simply stared: his hair was shorter, lighter, and almost blonde. This new face was softer and his lips more bowed. Like the ones before him, he looked fantastic in a suit, very dapper. "Do I really look so different? I haven't gotten a real look at myself, just caught my reflection in the door and it was blurry anyway."

"You...you're..." She was going to say 'tall' because it was definitely true; he must have been at least six feet tall in this body and he was beautifully lanky.

"A ginger!" She looked at his hair and made a face; it was a stretch but his hair did now have a reddish hue to it; River did not have the heart to tell him he did not look all that ginger. "Come on then, get dressed, we are going out."

"Out? Doctor...where?" It was useless to argue with that smile and those new eyes; they were charming when he smiled, sparkling with such emotion that River was instantly pulled along. He was dangerous and beautiful in his new body, all the energy in his usually more compact form was spiraled into him and she could _see _the Oncoming Storm hidden behind the enthusiasm and smiles.

His grin widened to ridiculous proportions but there was something false about it. "We are off to Derillium," he said. "Singing Towers."

She matched his smile and pulled him in by the lapels of his fancy, new suit. "You can come in and wait if you want. Park the TARDIS on a meter and take a seat, sweetie." It vaguely bothered her that he was getting younger while she got older and older but he did not seem to mind as he kissed her forehead playfully before falling across a chair and sprawling his long limbs out, head of newly ginger hair tipping back to watch her change into something more fitting for a night out.

"Don't mind if I do. Ah, but hurry up. Come on, these towers sing for only a little bit." His pale and piercing blue-green eyes stared at her with an urgency she had never seen before; maybe it was just the new eyes, she wasn't used to them just yet. A few days and that would all be straightened out.

"You have a time machine, does it matter all that much?"

"I'd like to get there, spend more time with you," he waved his hand a bit. "Real time, not the time what we have to steal. Real time, the kind that passes in a linear way, slowly...slowly and in order. Each second the exact way it's meant to be."

River froze in place for a moment, reaching for a dress. "Pardon?" She pulled it over her hips and maneuvered into the shoulders before contorting to zip it up the back. A hand rested at the base of her spine and she felt cool breath on the back of her neck; the Doctor slowly zipped it for her and it seemed to River that time slowed down a bit, just for them.

"I want time to pass. Normally. With you." She turned and stared at him. "All those times, I wouldn't touch them for the world now."

"Now? What do you mean now?" She did not have time to demand an answer before he was pulling her out the door, fingers laced, practically running for the TARDIS.

"Singing towers, let's go. Derillium," he pushed buttons and pulled leavers in his usual haphazard way and River was left, as always, fixing the coordinates and undoing his mess of button mashing and leaver yanking. "You'll love it, River. I know you will."

It was the way he said those words that made River glow and the way he looked at her that made her choke up and die inside; he sounded so happy but he looked so sad: it was only his reflection in the glass but she wanted to cry for him, if only he would give her a happy smile again.

The TARDIS hummed and whirred as she took off, hurtling through time and space.

DERILLIUM:

The towers _were_ singing. River looked up to the stars and marveled at the music that reverberated through her very being; it amazed her that she was so lucky to see this, to have been taken away by the only man in the universe who knew all her secrets. The Doctor shifted next to her.

"Thank you," she whispered. The Doctor did not say a word, he did not even look at her, but he let a single finger rest on her hand; the light pressure was both comforting and disturbing. She risked a glance at his face and was shocked by what she saw: His eyes were glowing and his lips were slightly parted as he stared intently at the shining towers, his face illuminated with an ethereal light.

And he was crying.

"Doctor?" He turned to her, not bothering to hide the tears now because he knew it was worthless; his eyes were rimmed with red and his cheeks burned with his salt-tears that fell onto his new chest. It served him right that in the first few hours of his new life it would be the end of her, the end of River Song. But she did not know, she could not know or at the very least he could never tell her. She leaned closer to him, concerned: in all her years, this man had never cried, at least not where anyone could see him in a moment of weakness. "Doctor, is everything alright?"

"No."

"No?" River jerked back. "What's wrong then?" Her eyes rapidly checked him over, making sure he was physically alright before determining that he was perfectly fine. "Tell me what the matter is."

He sat there a moment and closed his eyes before looking directly into her very being, trapping her in this moment and not letting her think about anything else; River took in a slow breath just as he breathed out a stream of golden regeneration energy and it filled her with a promise.

"You don't know my name," he said, looking at her still. "You've called me 'Doctor' all these years and I want that to end now. It has to end now. Someone needs to know."

"Then tell me," she gripped his hands desperately, lacing their fingers together and squeezing until her knuckles were white and the veins in her fingers popped out against her tan skin. "Just tell me."

"It's not that simple."

"Doctor, I will do anything to help you. Hell, at this point, I would even die for you-"

He cried out at that and lunged forward, kissing her so abruptly that they almost tumbled off their perch; the Doctor gripped her shoulders and pulled her forward, willing her to open her mind and see, listen to him and be the only one he told all his secrets too. She let him in, how could she say no?, and the last Time Lord poured himself into her mind with a golden light. There was sadness and hope and wonder and loss and so much love that River gasped aloud. He pulled back from their kiss but moved his hands to her face, cradling as he touched their foreheads together: she was hearing him now, as he was meant to be heard. It all tumbled out and it was all she could do to stay afloat in his thoughts.

_Theta Sigma, last of the Time Lords. I killed them all, River, every last one. It was all my fault. So I ran and I found friends and enemies and I found you. You who were so different and new, how could I not have you tag along? And we ran, you watch us run, do you remember? All those times and now it's over and River Song...thank you. Thank you for being so like me that I could live again. So call me Theta tonight. You are the only person who knows my name and you will be the last person to ever know it because, this is my last chance to say this, I have never said this to anyone: River Song, I-_

River silenced his thoughts with a kiss and her own voice. "Sweetie, I know. I've always known. It doesn't need saying, it really doesn't. If this is the end...if you won't see me again...please then don't make us both suffer for it. I know, I felt it in you mind. And you know what? Same."

It was not her usual level of eloquence but she could not have cared less because The Doctor- Theta- kissed her again and held her in the tightest embrace he could manage; they were so close River swore they were one body and one mind. Maybe they were now, she had done some research into Time Lords in her younger years, not that there was much to go on, and remembered something about a mind-bond, a secret name, a marriage- the thought thrilled her and terrified her. For this man to open so much of himself to anyone, to _her_, it had to be serious.

It had to be love.

"River," he breathed. "River, River Song, Melody Pond, Mels." He was squeezing her so tightly that she had trouble drawing each breath and wished that she had the respiratory bypass system that he had. "This is the last time; I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry."

Something about those words echoed in her mind, like deja vu, and River suppressed a shudder at the haunting hollowness in a memory that had not happened yet. "Theta-"

"No, please, don't. Take-" he choked and reached into his pocket. "Take my sonic."

"This is...Theta, what's wrong."

"I can't say much. River, you are going to get a call- and that is the last time I will ever see you. I am sorry. I really and truly am. I keep thinking, if I had never met you, had never-"

She stood then, separating from him. "Don't you even think about it. This is how it's meant to be and it will stay this way. I would have never met you? How could that possibly make me happy? All those times, I've lived them and I don't want to stop existing because you want to save me. It doesn't work like that, there's nothing you can do."

"Time can be rewritten," he choked, reaching for her again; his words from the past were spilling out of his mouth and he knew River's answer before she even opened her mouth. He closed his eyes and waited for the exact words he had heard her say so many years before. It would break him just as it had the very first time he met her, the very last time she met him: the end.

"Not those times, not one line. Don't you dare."

_I'm sorry, I'm so sorry._


End file.
